Abstract or Summary

Margaret Stoddart and Sydney Lough Thompson were successful New Zealand painters during the early decades of the twentieth century. Both became successful elsewhere, Stoddart in England, Thompson in France. They have been allocated similar roles in the history of New Zealand art, belonging to a generation that hankered after "Home" or the "Old World". Stoddart’s watercolours of flowers and Thompson’s oil paintings of rustic French scenes have been described as "nostalgic" and "sentimental", but as paintings they are rarely described at all. The exception is the Christchurch-based art historian Julie King, who has written and curated exhibitions on both Stoddart and Thompson. Here I build on her research by looking at the physical and stylistic characteristics of the paintings.